This is a 1964 Monza Convertible, 110-PG with factory A/C, originally owned by Astronaut John Glenn when he was still with NASA, living in Seacrest Texas. I am the 5th owner of this car, and bought it in 2001 with the intention of fully restoring it to its original appearance, but life got in the way and the car took a back seat to other events.

I did some work on the car initially to get it back on the road and even took it to a CORSA convention, entered it (unrestored) in Concours - (hee hee -the judges hated me for that!), and autocrossed it. I drove it to work for a time, then eventually it sat in storage for many years while I was busy taking care of my family and building my career. Along the way I would occasionally pick up some parts for the restoration project, eventually building up a good supply of things I would need, but the full restoration had to wait until I had the time and money to devote to it. Well, after 16 years, during which I said my final goodbyes to both parents and two of my 4 siblings, and hello to two grandchildren, I am finally in the right place to move forward on this project.

I plan to restore this car to Factory Stock appearance - factory A/C included. I hope to use as many of the original parts as possible in the restoration, but everything will need to be restored or refinished, as the car has pretty much worn completely out over 53 years. Sadly, I could not save the original seats as they had been eaten away by mice before I bought the car, but pretty much all of the other major parts are still original to the car, including the entire drive train, A/C parts, window glass, suspension, etc.

The car came loaded with options - almost everything except power top and of course 4 speed transmission (its a Powerglide). It even had the remote control LH driver mirror and rear antenna.

This past 6 weeks I have begun stripping out the car, boxing and labeling everything as I go, sometimes taking a break to restore some of the parts, but mostly setting them aside for later work. The goal is to strip it down to a body shell and then it will be trucked off on a pallet to the local restoration shop to be stripped, repaired and painted. While the body is away, I will work on restoring the original engine, transaxle, suspension, and other parts.

It's going to be a long journey, so strap in, sit back, and enjoy as I occasionally post my progress.

So far I have stripped out the exterior, trunk, doors, interior, and convertible top and frame. For the time being I have left the driver's seat in, and jury-rigged the ignition switch so I can still use the engine to move the car in and out of the garage. I have to push and pull the powerglide cable to engage the transmission. Most of the parts have been bagged and boxed and placed into storage inside a spare room in the house, but the power train and suspensions will need to stay outside, so I am now at a bit of an impasse until I make some room in my garage for them. Once that happens, I will remove everything under the car and drop the body shell down on a dolly. Well, I am also waiting a few months on that as the company doing the body is moving to new quarters shortly, so no sense sending them the body before that happens,

Here are a few of the boxes in the rooms over the garage - I am cleaning and sandblasting parts when I get time and then they are put inside the house to keep them out of the humidity until I get around to having them painted or powder coated.

I will blast the smaller stuff myself to save some money (and also to see better what needs to be repaired), but the bigger stuff (suspension, etc.) will be send out to a commercial service.

This is the rear seat and top well area. There is an interesting mixture of various paint and sealer layers here. The red primer was added by me when I first got the car - I had to do some floor repairs to make it drivable. Unfortunately all of that was temporary and will need to be removed so new floor panels can be welded in.

These Styrofoam blocks in the well area are glued in - interesting. Are these stock?

They were originally hot galvanized with rubber coated tips. After 53 years they were a bit rusty and the rubber worn away. After blasting them clean, they were painted with Rustoleum Cold Galvanizing and then the tips were dipped in Plasti-Dip.

Very nice start...I am just starting on a 64 conv...will not be as detailed and to the effort as you are doing...my frame off's/stripping to bare metal and replacing fixing everything is not in my future as I have done 3 cars from the ground up....time to enjoy what I have now.

My 66 140/pg is a great daily driver and will leave it as such. I still have two of my 3 cars mentioned...my 68 corvette and 49 chevy fleetline.

I cannot tell but I hope the parts in the boxes have been epoxy primered for protection....all of my cars after striping to bare metal were then sprayed with epoxy...it was either 2 part or 3 part...cannot remember now but protected the parts.

whubbell Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> These are the door window stops - restored.>> They were originally hot galvanized with rubber> coated tips. After 53 years they were a bit rusty> and the rubber worn away. After blasting them> clean, they were painted with Rustoleum Cold> Galvanizing and then the tips were dipped in> Plasti-Dip.>> Hopefully they will be good for another 53 years.

Nice work Bill! Believe it or not all of mine had the rubber still on them, intact and solid. I couldn't believe it either.

On my 51 ford, I replaced the rockers with new metal....your Pro Paint store has the professional grade sprays and paints and coatings to do the job correctly vs after market profit centered stores that sometimes are not best for your project. And they usually explain tips and best ways to use the product.

I used zinc weld thru spray on the rockers before welding them for example instead of just welding them and then coating them.

I am not a fan of eastwood...they used to be a great company and I bought a lot of their products...then...they went with China made long before everything went China made here vs American made high quality...that is when I quit buying from them....I think harbor freight is even better than eastwood...at least their made in China products have real unfiltered comments and customer reviews.

whubbell Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> This is the rear seat and top well area. There is> an interesting mixture of various paint and sealer> layers here. The red primer was added by me when> I first got the car - I had to do some floor> repairs to make it drivable. Unfortunately all of> that was temporary and will need to be removed so> new floor panels can be welded in.>> These Styrofoam blocks in the well area are glued> in - interesting. Are these stock?

I can't speak to the 1964 convertibles, however, my 1962 had hard rubber blocks, and the 1963 convertible that I took the roof assembly from had only one rubber block. I am still looking for another. I started a restoration on my 1962 A/C convertible over 10 years ago, but health issues stalled the project. A lot of the parts were lost when a heavy snow fall destroyed the building that they were stored in. I got back on it a couple of summers ago, but other cars keep slowing the process of the Corvairs restoration. I have lots of pictures of the roof removal from the 1963, so if you need anything, let me know. Aside from the mice doing some nest making, this car was amazingly unmolested, however, it suffered the fate of almost all New England Corvairs, severe rust issues, that prevent restoration possibilities. Junk

While I am in a holding pattern waiting to move some parts out of my garage to make room for the removal of the powertrain and suspension, I keep busy cleaning small parts and getting the body ready.

Even though the body is to be sandblasted, I am removing some material ahead of time to cut down on the time at the blasters (time is money...). For instance, the interior of this car was at some point in time repainted in a pale yellow color (originally was saddle). This yellow paint was applied very thickly and is not easily removed by sandblasting (as I discovered when I cleaned up the rear quarter upper trim panels). Therefore I am scraping it off. It scrapes off fairly easily, but it is still a tedious chore. Fortunately I only have to do two doors, the 'A' pillars, and rear quarter sections.

Shown here is the Driver's door with the yellow paint still on, and the passenger door, partially scraped.

Seam sealer was put on with a brush, and it was meant to be put on heavy. Seams if not caulked properly, are the places that the rust forms most quickly. I wish that we could get it in gallon cans, and do it like the factory did it. They knew what they were doing, and did it the best way possible, given the limited knowledge that they were given.